Please Feed the Goblins
by Wolfish Oro
Summary: Please, people, the poor characters are starving! I am helping combat fictional starvation, but you need to chip in, too! And the characters are also sleep deprived. Try writing/reading something to help them!


Please Feed the Goblins

* * *

"Where's the royal rat?" Sarah didn't even look up from stirring the cake batter to answer Hoggle.

"He's sleeping, Hoggle, leave him be. I know you don't like the pixies, but be at least be civil. Oh, and pass me the flour, would you? This batter is a little watery."

"How come yer stuck doin' all the cookin'?" Hoggle asked suspiciously. Sarah grinned, set the bowl down and whirled across the room to turn off the beeping timer and shut off the oven.

"He burns everything," she told the dwarf as she tugged on oven mitts and slid the lasagna out of the oven. "And I'm _not_ cooking everything, it just seems that way. Just wait until you taste the spicy chicken burritos the Fieries made, and the Helping Hands have been whipping up mousse and pudding, and the Junkyard Lady has all these wonderful recipes for lo mien, and the Wise Man is bringing Sheppard's pie, and Didymus is bringing his famous chili..."

Hoggle grimaced. "The only ones who can stomach that stuff is the Fieries an' the old coot. Didymus makes chili strong 'nuff to clear his own sini-- sinu-- nose."

"Ah, but no one's told Jareth that, now, have they?" Sarah hummed along with the radio, mischief gleaming in her eyes as she continued her dance around the kitchen. Hoggle snickered behind her.

"That'll be priceless," he said, watching Sarah spray cake pans with canola oil. "What kind of cake are you makin'?"

"I actually have two," Sarah replied, pouring the cake batter into the pans. "This one is devil's food; the other is angel's food. I couldn't resist the irony. Or the chocolate, truth be told."

Didymus poked his head through the doorframe. "Milady, the rest of your noble clan has arrived with the pizza and popcorn shrimp. The tables are getting quite crowded, milady, do you have, perchance, a spare table?"

"There's one in the garage, Didymus," Sarah called as she dug through her pantry to find the powdered sugar. She needed it for the glaze, and she already melted the butter and chocolate, but the darn sugar was _hiding_...

"If you're looking for the sugar, it's in the cabinet," Toby told her as he bounced over to sit next to Hoggle on the bar stools. "Hey, Hoggle. What's up?"

"Not the King, fer once," Hoggle groused. "He should be down here helpin' Sarah."

"Leave it be, Hoggle, he hasn't slept since Toby was eight."

"I'm fourteen!"

"That's my point. He can nap until everyone's here," Sarah finally located the powdered sugar and measured it out, pouring the sugar and hot water in the pan of soon-to-be chocolate glaze. "Toby, if you can start herding the Goblins into the bathroom to wash their hands, we can start passing out plates in an hour or less."

"I'll go, too," Hoggle volunteered. "Them Goblins'll run ya in circles, Toby. Let's get goin'."

Sarah sang along to the radio, enjoying the plucky tune. "_Take all your so called problems... Better put 'em in quotations... Say what you need to say_," Sarah crooned with the singer on the radio. She tapped her foot to the rhythm, knowing that a very different kind of music would be playing once the Goblins got set up.

There was a crash from the general vicinity of the back yard, but Sarah could hear Karen calling the Goblins to order, so she didn't bother leaving her kitchen yet.

"Sarah?" The voice was sleepy, and Sarah turned to see the Goblin King stroll through the door and into the kitchen, yawning. "How long was I asleep?"

She looked at the clock, calculating quickly. "Five hours. You really need to get more sleep, Jareth, it isn't healthy for you to go years without sleep, Fae or not," she chastised. "Sit down; I have some potatoes you can peel. No magic! I don't want a repeat of the carrots!"

He had the grace to look sheepish, but that didn't stop Jareth from grinning cheekily. "I thought the carrots were funny," he said defensively. He picked a potato from the bowl Sarah set on the counter in front of him, peeling it deftly and placing it on the cutting board for Chopper, a Goblin cook, to slice. This continued until all the potatoes were ready to be boiled and then mashed, and Jareth moved on to his next task: helping Sarah move the cakes outside.

She looked out at all the creatures in her back yard and grinned, nudging Jareth playfully. "The band's started up... Would you care to dance? The potatoes need another twenty minutes, anyway."

Jareth bowed regally, taking her arm and leading her to the grassy area serving as a dance floor. The next song was rather similar to a line dance, and neither the Fae nor the mortal knew the tune, but they danced merrily, laughing at themselves, each other, and the Goblins cheering them on. Didymus joined the dancing, twirling a pixie around to the beat of the twangy Goblin song, and then Ludo pushed Hoggle in with the Junkyard Lady. They, too, danced in their own way, for the fun of it and nothing more. The Fieries lead the next dance, and Sarah had to sit a moment to catch her breath after those two long songs.

Jareth grinned at her, and she smiled back, thinking it was nice to see everyone so carefree. Drought and bad trade, threatening war and familial tensions, insomnia and responsibility... these things and more had been weighing upon the King's mind for far too long. This get-together she'd planned was turning out to be just the thing to bring Jareth and his Kingdom out of their doldrums.

People came and went the whole night through, Labyrinthians and people Sarah had met at the Underground University alike. The Goblins were always running up to her with a new game or story, and Jareth frequently stole her away to the kitchen to let her have a little breathing room-- there wasn't any outside, for there were far too many people crowding the yard and having a blast doing so.

It was a wonder that the food didn't run out, and when she mentioned this to Jareth, he grinned slyly and winked.

"Attention, please," Jareth called at around midnight. The yard fell mostly silent, and everyone waited for the King to continue.

"As you all know, Sarah Williams was the mastermind behind this event," the crowd applauded, and Jareth had to pause before he finished, "and in honor of that, the Goblins of the Castle decided to give her a gift. Kepp, you may bring it forward now."

Kepp, a young Goblin who worked as a Scribe, dragged a box behind him. It was easily as big as he was, but since Kepp was only as tall as a human hand from wrist to middle finger, that wasn't saying much.

The box was wrapped in what looked suspiciously like aluminum foil, and it had a pretty (if lopsided) bow tied to it, and the ribbon of the bow had been liberally decorated with chicken feathers. Sarah smiled at the sight of it, and when Kepp presented it to her; she made sure to admire it appropriately.

She carefully unwrapped the bow, setting it on the table next to her. The "wrapping paper"-- up close, she could tell it was, indeed, aluminum foil-- was treated with equal care, leaving a plain brown box and a folded index card. Sarah read the index card to herself, then aloud for the crowd to hear.

"_Dear Lady,_" she read, "_Thank you very much for cooking for us. The Goblins. P.S. King says hi._" Jareth glanced at Kepp reproachfully, but said nothing. Sarah looked over at the King. "Hello to you, too."

"Well, open it already," Jareth commanded.

"Patience is a virtue," Sarah retorted, and Jareth rolled his eyes. Finally, she opened the box, and laughed.

"Thank you, it's wonderful," she told Kepp, and then again to the Goblins in general.

"We all chipped in t' get it," one Goblin said shyly.

"Could you help me with the clasp?" Kepp nodded, and Sarah helped the Goblin to climb up to her shoulder. Kepp made quick work of the necklace's clasp, and Sarah looked down at the pendant on the silver chain.

It was delicately crafted, a silver Goblin sitting on a leaf, beside him a sign saying, "Please feed the Goblins".

* * *

Oro: Based on a rant from Ocean Fae on the nature of fanfiction-- angst in particular-- and how the characters never get fed. There's a line up there that covers the plots for most angsty fics-- war, drought, family-- and how this get-together is to combat those things.

It's true in more ways than one.

The song on the radio is _Say_, by John Mayer. I don't own it.

The recipe references to the chocolate glaze is from bhg(dot)com (slash)recipes look up chocolate glaze, there's a white cake recipe with the glaze recipe included. I don't own that, either.

The characters recognizable from Labyrinth (i.e., everyone except Kepp) is from the movie and not my own imagination. I especially don't own them.


End file.
